


The Morning After

by Monkess



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-19
Updated: 2013-11-19
Packaged: 2018-01-02 02:36:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1051525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Monkess/pseuds/Monkess
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pointless post-Rumbelle-wedding morning after fluff, because I wish to deny reality and replace it with my own.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Morning After

Even if Rumplestiltskin had stared at Belle many times, while she was awake or asleep, he'd never felt so in awe, watching her, as he did early on the morning after a small gathering. The gathering which had included sparkly wine and cake, two rings, and getting rid of the guests within record time. He didn't care to have people around, and certainly not while every moment he expected to make a fool of himself since even without the wine he constantly felt as if though his heart was about to pop out of his chest – figuratively, not literally – whenever his eyes had glanced past Belle across the previous day.

He had no notion of time. He'd drifted out of sleep thanks to some neighbour probably, doing gardening work with a chain saw. The noise was irritating, but to go and get rid of it would have required getting out of bed, and he had no intention of leaving bed until it was absolutely imperative.

Rumplestiltskin did feel more at ease now, with the wedding night over and done with. It had made him far more nervous than he'd have thought. He still felt as if his heart was about to fall out of his chest, for how hard he felt it thumping in his chest, but that was more due to him recalling the events of the night rather than the panic and fear that had started to set in his gut yesterday afternoon.

He wrapped an arm about Belle and cuddled closer to her to inhale her hair and skin. His darling Belle was barely awake, but reciprocated by turning towards him and taking use of his shoulder as a pillow and resting her arm about his waist, over the covers. Underneath, there was just a sheet separating them from each other, and in another moment, Rumplestiltskin felt Belle's free hand lift that from between them. She pressed closer, skin on skin, and he responded with an appreciative sigh, feeling his blood stir a little.

“Sweetheart,” he whispered and kissed her forehead, her cheek, and then when she lifted her face up to meet him, her lips. The irritating sound of the chainsaw outside somewhere in the neighbourhood died out at last.

“Good morning,” Belle muttered, he could hear her smile in her voice, and she kissed him.

He felt his heart skip a beat and a headiness, like he'd drank more sparkly wine, when she climbed on top of him, keeping most of her weight on her knees and elbows, and leaned down to kiss him. He wasn't sure what to do, but then again, she seemed to have the situation well in hand...

The doorbell rang.

Belle glanced at the door of the bedroom, her expression quizzical.

Rumplestiltskin sighed, and not out of pleasure. “Something horrible is about to happen,” he swore, finding his throat dry and raspy as he spoke out loud.

Belle gave him an understanding yet admonishing glare. “Perhaps I should answer the door. It is my house too now, after all.”

Rumplestiltskin grabbed her by her waist and pulled her tight against him. “We're not home,” he said, and Belle, laughing, placed kisses up his neck to his ear.

“We're not home then,” Belle agreed, speaking softly near his ear.

They ignored the second time the doorbell rang, but then there was a quickly consecutive third and fourth rings, at which time the magic was out of the morning.

“I'll go see who it is,” Belle declared. She wasn't too queasy about going to the door wearing as little as a nightie and dressing gown, and she was also less likely of the two to murder, maim or turn an innocent visitor into a small animal, Rumplestiltskin knew, but he groaned as he let her go and felt cheated out of a morning with Belle as she got dressed and left the room.

Already guessing that the urgent morning visitor was for him, Rumplestiltskin got out of bed with the intention of getting dressed before going downstairs to glare daggers at whoever was at the door. It took a few moments until he heard Belle calling him at the foot of the staircase to come down.

“Darling, there's something strange outside!”

Rumplestiltskin made no hurry coming down the steps. He thought it was one of the Charmings, who were now at all hours presuming his help with whatever insignificant nonsense was bothering them, or the largely useless wretched townsfolk of Storybrook.

From the stairs, he overheard Belle speaking at the front door. “... fine, nothing's wrong inside. It does look amazing.”

“What is it?” Rumplestiltskin asked, trying to hide his irritation. Belle glanced over her shoulder and stepped aside to reveal the visitor at the door, who seemed not-at-all pleased themselves to be there: Carrying a chain saw in one hand was the dressed-for-work Sheriff Emma Swan, who glared at him as if he'd done something terrible again. They had a three-second mutual extreme irritation glaring contest in silence, until Belle grabbed him by the hand and led him outside to the front of the house, all excitement.

He didn't need to be led to the outside of the house to see something was off, he noticed it the moment he looked at the thick, thorny vines framing the front door that definitely shouldn't have been there. Thorny vines full of deep dark red rose blooms were strewn across the ground in front of the ground.

“Belle, watch your feet,” Rumplestiltskin said, as Belle tip-toed around the carnage of thick roses and their leaves, but she pointed at him to look at the house.

“What is this?” Belle asked, confused but excited, in a manner that reminded him of how she often behaved in the Dark Castle, and Rumplestiltskin followed her gaze: His salmon-coloured Storybrook house was almost entirely covered in climbing rose bushes, with stems thick like tree branches. Some of the windows had been at least spared to let in light.

“Your neighbour called it in this morning,” Emma Swan said. “I tried calling you first, you know, and then you didn't answer the phone in a couple of hours, and since I couldn't tell if you were asleep or cursed or... what, I decided to ring the doorbell.” Emma lifted the chain saw and gave them both a smile which didn't reach her face. “I'll just get out of your face, I'm sure you can figure this out yourselves.”

“Thank you, Emma!” Belle called to the sheriff, who packed her chain saw in her car. Rumplestiltskin barely registered Emma cracking a joke about the neighbourhood's gardening standards, or her subsequent leaving.

“Is the house cursed?” Belle asked, while Rumplestiltskin led her back inside, now more worried that her feet might get snagged by the thorns on the rose branches lying all around their doorstep, and less worried about the house.

“No, let me make you breakfast and I'll tell you what happened,” he replied, feeling slightly uneasy, and to be honest, a little embarrassed.

Belle closed the door behind them and followed him around the house to the kitchen. “You can make tea, I'll do the eggs,” she said decidedly and made herself busy. Rumplestiltskin wondered if that was so he could have less substitute activities to draw on his story with, or leave it untold.

There was not much to do with boiling water for tea, so he put the kettle on, took out the tea cups, and watched Belle crack eggs on the frying pan. “Well?” She asked.

The option of vanishing was not on the table, but Belle looked lovely and soft and truly irresistible even while making eggs in the kitchen, so Rumplestiltskin was inspired to step around to stand behind her and rest his hands on her hips while she gave him a look that was about to border on less lovable and more on the edge of their first argument as a married couple.

So when at least why the house was the way it was was due to a fairly innocent reason, and Rumplestiltskin found his tongue so he might get away from it.

He had to explain how magic was made, and about feelings, and how emotions directed the magic rather than rational thought. He had to also explain about how having too much power sometimes led to some fairly overkill situations, not that he'd had too many of those, oddly enough. After he'd killed Milah, he'd found it easier to bottle up any magic trying to stray away running off with his heart, but he didn't say that out loud, tell Belle that – even thinking about his first wife on this day was a little too much.

Belle was quiet for a moment, and there was no sound in the kitchen then apart from the eggs popping and cracking on the frying pan, and the water boiling.

“So, you forgot to... keep it together last night?” Belle asked, and Rumplestiltskin was uncertain of which feeling his wife was displaying then.

“Something like that,” he said sheepishly, let go of her, and went to find tea for the pot. Loose dark leaves with lemon zest. “I'll clear it up after breakfast.”

“I make flowers grow in your mind?” Belle asked, her hand suddenly on his arm, warm even through his shirt. He turned to look at her. She held a spatula in her other hand, which made for a slightly comical effect, but she had a small quietness to her voice that reduced the amusement in that.

“Yes?” Rumplestiltskin replied.

She broke into a sweet, wonderful smile, and pulled herself to her tiptoes to kiss him. “That's... nice to hear,” Belle said softly, and then returned her attention to the breakfast. “You're overdressed, by the way, I think you should head upstairs and get rid of those clothes. I'll bring a tray up to bed in a moment.”

Dazed, he went about to do just what the new Mrs Rumplestiltskin wished.


End file.
